Senator Sharon Keogan has sharply critiqued the National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI) at an Oireachtas hearing, questioning whether it represented the diversity of women’s opinions and asking whether the organisation believed that the public got it wrong when it delivered a massive NO NO vote in the 2024 referenda where the tax-payer funded organisation was a key supporter of the proposals.
She challenged the NWCI representatives to admit they got their position on those referenda wrong – asking if they wouldn’t acknowledge that were they then saying the public, which delivered a landslide rejection of the proposals, had got it wrong.
The people voted NO to both the proposal to remove the reference to mothers at home, and the proposal to redefine the family, by 74% and 68% respectively, the highest NO votes to any referendum question in the history of the State.
The Independent Senator said that there was no single feminist viewpoint – and that many women, in which she included herself, disagreed with the NWCI on significant issues.
“In your statement you speak about the ambition to of building a feminist Ireland. So I’d like to explore what exactly that means,” Senator Keogan said.
“There’s no single feminist viewpoint. Many women [who] would describe themselves as feminist disagree with the National Women’s Council on significant issues – and I’m one of them – including questions around gender identity, self-identification and the balance between sex-based rights and gender based rights. Equally, there are many women who take more traditional views on family life, care, and the sisterhood and who may not identify as feminists at all.
“Given that diversity of opinion, does the Women’s Council distinguish between advocating for the interests of women generally and advocating for one particular strand of feminist thought?” the Meath Senator asked.
“When you come before this committee and present policy recommendations in the name of women, what do you do to ensure that women who disagree with your organization’s positions, including dissenting feminists and women with more traditional viewpoints, are genuinely heard and represented? Are these women heard and represented by the National Women’s Council?” she said.
In response, Corrine Hasson of the NWCI said that they are a membership based organization, with “over 200 members in the National Women’s Council that goes from grassroots organizations um other civil society members, NGOs right up to the unions.”
“So we take our mandate from our members,” she said, adding that they also took information from the voices of women on the ground.
She referenced trad wives, but insisted that “if a woman wants to be at home raising her children she should also be supported to do that.”
Asked by Senator Keogan if the NWCI believed a child will thrive better with the mother at home, Ms Hasson said that the organisation’s view was that a child benefitted from having a parent at home for the first year of their life.
SHARP QUESTIOINING ON 2024 REFERENDA
On the 2024 referenda, Senator Keogan said “the electorate actually decisively rejected both proposals” and asked: “So what lessons did you learn from that result? Did you did you lead to any reflection that there may be a substantial gap between the priorities of professional advocacy organizations and the priorities of many women, carers and families across the country?”
“Or do you consider the public simply got it wrong? I mean here you are telling us that you represent over 200 members. Did the unions get it wrong? Did every organization in the country get it wrong? And also you used public money at that time to promote that message,” she added,
When Ms Hasson said that NWCI felt at the time that the YES YES was about equality – Senator Keogan asked: “So, did the public get it wrong?”
“But your members got it wrong then. So one somebody got it wrong. So did your members the 200 organization that you seem to represent, they were fully behind you on the SCS campaign. Is that what you’re saying?” she asked.
“Well, thank God the public got it right,” Senator Keogan said.